FROM “OUR LADY OF GOOD VOYAGE” OVERNIGHT FERRY,
TO “OCEAN JET II”, A FAST LAUNCH FROM CEBU CITY TO HILANGOS, LEYTE,
AND A WELCOME TO LBH—Leyte Baptist Hospital
January 25, 2003
No, this is not a cruise ship. In fact, it looks more like the pick up of the floating Haitian rescue boat boarded by the Coast Guard with the refugees clinging to their blanket from the international refugee organizations! I had always read of a Philippine ferry boat caught in a typhoon with the boat sunk and all hands lost at sea. The boat may have been “registered for five hundred passengers, and three thousand are feared dead.” This is the expanding flexible capacitance of such a ferry, and the lower end of the passenger scale is less rigorously counted than are the POSH (remember?—this is the designation for first class English sailing off to Raj= “Port Out/Starboard Home”=the preA/C shady side of the ship in each direction!) passengers such as I, accommodated in a cabin for my 700 pesos in luxury. Even more luxurious comes the next cruise on over to Leyte in the one “Fast Boat” going today—the “Ocean Jet II”. This looks like a cigarette boat on steroids. It accommodates passengers only—and for good reason. My forty kg bag and the other box of pineapples and medicines and the donated Nonin Pulse Oximeter all added up to a 280 peso “excess baggage charge” (only $6.00, but 3/4ths of my last pesos after the 440 peso ticket was paid.)
The “thrum/thrum” of the diesel engines and the jet of cold air from the fan stopped simultaneously about 5:45 AM as I was braving myself for the dunking under the cold water of the nozzle shower. We turned and backed into port, as we had seen the ship do on arrival in Cagayan de Oro bound for Cebu City last night. No pilot is necessary, and no tug boat is used to turn the boat around since these folk seem to know how to do this well, since they have been doing it a long time. They seem to think it is cold, and many are sporting the jackets or coveralls that would be used in my part of the world about March. I am standing on the fantail sweating in the tropical heat, but they seem to think this winter duty is rather chilly
The working folk, however, are out in force. A number of kids, families and women are bobbing alongside the ship in outrigger canoes, with either a large net, to catch whatever might be thrown to them, or ready to dive into the murky sea water if a passenger from a deck far above them should toss a coin into the water. They will dive for the coin, and capture it as it sinks down toward the bottom of the Philippine Sea. We had about an hour for us to watch this ceremony, and also to watch the making fast the boat to the Pier Four, as we had our luggage carried out from the cabin to the waterfront. The porters insisted on throwing my 40 kg suitcase to their shoulder rather than using the wheels, since it warranted a bigger tip. It was a total of 300 pesos for all our combined luggage from the vehicle to the waiting room to the cabin—a real deal, since for $6.00 they could move it all and much more easily than I but also they would know where it goes and I did not.
SUNRISE OVER MACTAN,
THE HISTORIC SITE OF THE LAST TRIUMPH, OF THE NATIVE OVER THE INVADER—
WHERE LAPU LAPU KILLED MAGELLAN,
THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATOR IN HISTORY, ALMOST
As I stood on the foredeck beneath the captain’s bridge, I saw the glow of the sun coming up over Mactan. It was on this island that the commander of the first flotilla to circumnavigate the globe to prove beyond most doubters that the earth was round, encountered the indigenous tribal authority. The European with all his advanced technology invaded the space of the locals, and was thought to be a god. But are not gods supposed to be immortal? Lapu Lapu proved that not to be the case---that Magellan was not a god or that all gods are not immortal, at least, when he struck out at and killed the commander of the ocean realms. So, the first attempt at circumnavigation was a good one, and accomplished its goal, but without its commander who had set forth to do it. The locals proved too powerful, for this one time, at least, and perhaps one of the last times, if we except the similar story for James Cook in the Sandwich Isles now Hawaii. In later contests, it has been locals zero, with colonizing invaders, all the marbles.
There is a giant, larger than life statue of Lapu Lapu out there on the island we will nearly touch as we leave the Cebu City of Cebu Island to skirt it on our way to Leyte in the fast launch of Ocean Jet II. That may be the reason he gets a larger than life Colossus, is that he was the local who struck back against empire, as inexorable as would be the later encroachment on his turf. The Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch navigators all, then the Japanese and the Americans in successive waves of dominion by sea and air. There have been some losing innings, but Lapu Lapu’s image still stands.
WE moved our heavy kit, our baggage with souvenirs, along with boxes of MKADC pineapples and the Nonin Pulse Oximeter and a bag of medicines for the LBH Pharmacy to cover the patients we would be operating on later in the three operating days and two visiting days at the LBH. We got a taxi down from Pier Four to Pier One and bought our tickets for the Ocean Jet II, paid the excess luggage fees and had breakfast with the last of the pesos. Ragon was going to meet the aunt of his wife, who was arriving from Ilho Ilho. She is a retired nurse from Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. Ragon points out that if his sister had not been working in the US at the time he was in medical school at a rate of five thousand pesos a semester, he would never have finished medical school—with heavy costs of books and fees (despite the low value it seems to us of $100/semester tuition; now it is 50,000 pesos or $1,000—so all the aspirants here are dependent on the OFW’s = “overseas Filipino Workers.) I also learned that the University of Philippines Medical Faculty has a great number of Iraqis, Iranians and Saudis in medical school, and that the world is a ready market for them since the language of instruction is English. But, his wife “Ludy’s” (short for “Lourdes”) Auntie is coming in just after we are scheduled to take off, so he will have to follow tonight, on a slow boat, since we have the only fast launch of the day to Hilangos. As he left, he spotted Raquel, a member of his church, who is a chemical engineer, and who had a mitral valve replaced at the Philippine Heart Institute by George Garcia’s group from the Washington Hospital Center who operate in Manila. She had along with her a retired farmer born in Georgia, so he sounded like Jennifer from Savannah, and he had later moved to Northern Virginia to do some tree farming. His wife got the farm in the divorce that took place in Warrenton, and he became a policeman in Alexandria, but is poking around here since he feels a non-defined “tugging on his heart” to be involved in mission service. So, these two would be fellow passengers on the Ocean Jet II when we set off for Hilangos.
AMONG THE FAST JET SET OF OCEAN TRAVEL
Yes, Ocean Jet is fast, since we cruised around the island of Mactan, and the two bridges connecting it to Cebu (the airport for Cebu City is on the island of Mactan connected by these bridges) and set out across the ocean for Leyte arriving less than two hours after our only slightly tardy takeoff. The later slow boat that would carry Ragon and his wife’s Auntie would leave at five PM and arrive at 9:30 PM
WE arrived at the pier on Hilangos, and I picked up the pulse oximeter and the drugs as well as my little backpack carryon bag, and walked the length of the pier, expecting less that I would recognize anyone here I had never yet met, than that I would be recognizable as the single white face trudging toward Hilangos, dodging around the dozens of tricycle rickshaws offering me their services. When I encountered the dark AUV that waved and said “Hello, Doctor!” We turned out to need the services of a few of these rickshaw tricycles after all, since we could not fit my bag as well as all of us in the vehicle. So, we went down the road a very short distance to LBH—a very nice old but functional hospital. I walked past the two banners proclaiming welcome to Dr. Glenn Geelhoed—even spelled correctly—and Jennifer Curran, and there were apologies for the banner hung across the street with the same announcement, which had blown away. There is also a notice of a “Surgery week” with the arrival of Dr. Lincoln Nelson from the USA in April. A potential MMI mission in October is advertising a 50% discount rate on "Surgeries" to be done at that time. Tat will be when he comes for the fiftieth anniversary of the BBH. HE is 74 and still operating apparently, and I am now in the cornier room of the Guest house, which was his home, and they partitioned the upstairs for the use of the male and female guests where his children once grew up. I read his autobiography last year from the BBH Library.
ORIENTATION
OK, YOU HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH, NOW HERE ARE YOUR BEARINGS!
LEYT = 10* 22. 14 N
AND 124* 45. 21 E
MNLP (MANILA) 381 MILES @ 319*
BING (TBOLI) 285 171*
NASU (NASULI) 166 171*
BETH (BBH) 155 171*
MONK (MONA) 158 171*
CAGA (DE ORO) 131 181*
CEBU (CITY) 57.3 265*
HLUH (HAWAII) 5,147 71*
HOME (DERWOOD) 8,732 21*
DCAA (WASH) 8,752 21*
RELAXING ARRIVAL AND FINAL UNPACKING
FOR THE TERMINAL PHASE OF LEYTE AT LBH
THE SUBJECT OF JAN-D-SERIES
It is Saturday, and yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the LBH, but they elected not to celebrate it until today, since our arrival would give them a second reason to feel encouraged. So, despite the fact that Ragon will not make it until later tonight, they are having a special meeting tonight at which they would like me to make some statements of encouragement. Since that may be the dingle biggest yield from this or any other medical mission I make to anywhere, I will be happy to do so.
After my arrival and tour of the facilities—adjacent to a big church and school complex spun out from this health endeavor—I had lunch with Wilma the administrator, and Gene Alison, the fellow who wanted to do something related to missions. He was going to tell me about trees and their relationship to water since he had a passion for trees before h is tree farm is now in his wife’s hands, and I told him about Derwood, (which he said I should request permissions to become a tree farm, a route already taken, but not before in Montgomery County MD) and I told him the fate of the Wye Oak, the US Forestry emblem, and told him about Bristlecone Pines, and the monument to their unique contribution in Dendrochronology in the park reserved for them in Eastern Sierras in California near Bishop California.
I unpacked the big case and organized the film and tapes, and the souvenirs of which the books and t'nalaks make for the heaviest weights to be carried. I read my ticket to see that I am leaving from Tacloban Airport on Leyte at 3:35 PM on Wednesday, so that gives me a day of adjustment today, a church and touring day tomorrow (when we will be taking an outboard powered boat to the landing site of Gen. Mac Arthur) and a general look around the island of Leyte to see what I can see before we operate for the three days that remain to us I our Jan-D-series.
So, I will get back to you about the events of the evening in which I now find I am much more participant than spectator on this which looks like it may be the harbinger scouting trip of a future MMI full-dress medical mission to LBH akin to the one in Tboli area, and with a view to the design of a future mission to PBH Palowan.
THE 29TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
OF LBH, AND THE SPECIAL WELCOME CEREMONY
FOR THE VISITING GUESTS FOR THE SURGICAL SCOUTING MISSION
One of the accidental guests who just “fell into” this welcome ceremony was the “retired farmer” from Virginia named Gene Alison who had nothing he could say or do to add to a surgical mission, but only knew that he wanted to be a part of something as good as what was going on, so he offered to sing a special song. His particular talent was that he sang in a barbershop gospel quartet—a bit of a nonstarter like Don Van Weynen’s special forte spinning tops, as an entrée’ to missions. He said that he was always asked what the purpose of having someone like him in a barbershop quartet when he had no hair—but as soon as he began to sing “Amazing Grace” I might have asked, “What is the purpose of having a bass in a barbershop quartet when he has no voice?” There is no there there.
Then Jennifer got up and said she was not used to talking in front of people nor was she used to flying, and now she was doing both—but then lost her train of thought. She repeated her story of the time she sat in a lawn chair and squeezed off the end of her finger, and wanted to go wherever the surgeon who had repaired it had just come from and that was on a mission to Honduras. She said that she became a Christian in 1974 and that nothing has been the same since, and that she went from being a welfare mother on food stamps to a certified first assistant now engaged in teaching the same to other nurses. She added that God uses the fools to confound the wise, and that was what her place was in this mission, and although she was foolish, she certainly was glad to be a part of this and wanted to do more of it. She is already talking about next year, in response to everyone’s frequently repeated admonitions to come back again soon, and she is already talking about going with me to Palowan despite the remoteness, the dangers (remembering that the Branhams were kidnapped there, let alone the endemic malaria and other features) and does not do well unless she knows precisely what is coming up next and what is expected of her---which is almost never known in the flexibility require din any foreign mission—when nothing ever goes as planned. Given a task to do and the information in advance as to what is expected, she can respond, but otherwise is bored or overwhelmed, neither of which are ideal for the self-starter with what I described through Alan as the single requirement for a foreign mission—“an infinite threshold for frustration”. To be flexible, ingeniously enterprising and self-resourceful in innovative problem-solving is the right mix in the kind of individual who does well in such circumstances, not one who decompensatesaaaaaaa in the sustained ambiguity of the approach to the unknown. If she is uncertain, she hangs on as a coquettish superannuated Southern belle, and responded in Malaybalay that there is "nothing in BBH for a NIFA to do," since they do not need me here—then missed the biggest goiter when she went out to take a walk since she was frustrated, and I wound up doing it solo with the nurse Wilma. The next day, she is overly elated at the fastest thyroidectomy she has ever been a part of, immediately followed by a bowel resection and two layer anastamosis—but both of them set up and handed over to her rather than put together from the needs of the people unforeseen. And, now we are on our own in the advance “scouting team of a proposed future MMI.”
The assembled group then asked of me to give words of encouragement and inspiration. I gave a speech in contrast to those that preceded it (which may or may not have been tape recorded since my tape recorder took the occasion of Jennifer’s speech to screech, turn off and act up generally). I told of the history of these islands over run by conquerors from Lapu Lapu to Magellan, to the Japanese, to the Americans, all of whom have come and gone leaving them to look after the future and their neighbors. I mentioned my work in Africa and how it had brought me to Mindanao by what surely could not be viewed as a coincidence and how now I am looking at Palowan and Atlan while asking what the LBH can do to help support outreach to the others who are needy around them. One of three people came up to me for thanking me for the challenge and encouragement of the closing lines that the purpose of a leader is not to make good followers but new leaders.
We then had a dinner, sponsored by one nurse who had gone on to USA to make a lucrative living, but remembered that this was the LBH’s anniversary. And sent back founds to support a celebration. This may be the kind of tugging conscience salve that keeps the Philippine economy afloat from much of the foreign earnings returning. I learned that the small group of the medical school class in Tacloban, Leyte, named after Imelda Marcos’s mother, (her uncle is the name on the Tacloban airport—although it keeps changing—and Imelda’s brother is Tacloban Mayor, although there is an indictment against him by an ombudsman and to avoid service of process, he is admitted to a hospital where he has been for a long time to keep from facing some corruption music) was the 45 member graduating class that included, Dr. Bahby Uvyico here, and Susan at BBH, and Jovi who might be at PBH if she decides in favor of that place, Further our local MD here besides Dr. Ragon Espino Ft. Bhaby, was a veterinary school mate of Blessie before she went into medicine and before Blessie made the recent transition to also enter medicine, but, because there was no medical school in Cagayan de Oro, she went to nursing school instead.
Our dinner was separated, with the best of everything being for the Guests and chiefs, and the rest for the staff. We had a blackened parrotfish—the kind I have seen on any number of reefs and was told that this is possible while I am here to rent scuba gear and go diving. We also had the Lechon, the very fat suckling pig complete with the Chi Chi Rones—the “Skin of the Pig”. We also had cold fried chicken and the sold cooked crabs, looking like Chesapeake Blue Crabs pre-molt (it was explained that it was not crabbing season until July). We also had several fruits and the pineapples we had brought from MKADC as part of our excess luggage fees.
So, I have made a very public splash as the welcomed one as we will be going to church and touring for a day, then operating and seeing patients for two and a half days more. It is a rather public focus on me, instead of on a team and the support work we hope to be to Ragon and the indigenous staff, but it will soon be known that they are thrones to carry on with their newly declared secondary hospital status (they had to buy an expensive anesthesia machine to pull themselves up from primary to secondary through this device). I believe that my mission here is to encourage and inspire them toward greater self-reliance and assistance in meeting that goal. If that is the mission, I may already have accomplished it, without yet having operated on a single patient in LBH after over a hundred operations so far in the prior two weeks.